[HANASHIR:5962] Tape Recording

[Adrian Durlester <durleste...>]

Rick Mann is the first person to begin any kind of organized recording,
editing and distributing of Hava Nashira sessions, and I began to assist him
shortly thereafter. For several years, he and I worked to record as many
sessions as possible, edit the tapes down, verify attributions, master,
duplicate and distribute. Every year I did this I took a serious financial
loss, as the cost for the tapes came nowhere close to my actual
expenditures. The final year I did so (1998) I was unable to create and
distribute copies, as I was no longer working in a place where that was
possible (I spent the summer at OSRUI!) Eventually, I did turn copies of
those DATS over to a HN attendee who did compile them into a CD for his own
purposes.

The purpose of the tapes was clear: to serve as a remembrance, and also as a
resource FOR THOSE WHO ATTENDED to review, study and learn the repertoire of
material presented. Distribution was strictly limited to attendees. In some
cases, the faculty asked us not to include certain unrecorded materials,
which was done.

I had been pushing the OSRUI management for several years on the subject of
a formal recording arrangement, but they, and some of the faculty, were
reluctant to do so and get into all sorts of legal hassles with the artists'
managers about copyrights and such. For the record, the HN recordings were
made and distributed with the full knowledge of the HN faculty.

It seems, last year,as I was unable to attend, and as he is an
ethnomusicologist, OSRUI took Judah up on the idea of "official" HN
recordings. Sadly, someone (and not Judah) has failed to follow through on
this.

Having reflected on all this, I think it is time for some serious and OPEN
discussion about this process.

Through this list, Hava Nashira has grown beyond the bounds of the workshop
itself. While we would not want to do anything that might have a financially
negative impact on OSRUI by eliminating the desire to actually attend Hava
Nashira, there is a need for repertoire building among songleaders.

Much of the music being taught at HN is already recorded, and already
available in sheet music or in a collection. However, no one has ever
undertaken to research and report on all the songs taught at Hava Nashira,
telling where recordings and printed music of each may be found. In
addition, we often have to write out our own music, or wait until formal
publication, before we can get music to new songs (or unpublished songs)
taught at Hava Nashira. (Of course, often that music IS available, if you
ask-I know that Randee Freidman can often comply with requests - and I
myself have made my transcription skills available to others so that they
can have sheet music to distribute of their songs.)

I submit that such a resource (both citations of the music taught at Hava
Nashira and where it can be obtained-recorded and printed-and perhaps even a
yearly HN supplement of transcriptions of new songs,) might be ultimately
more valuable than a recording, and maybe that's where we should focus our
attention? Such a compendium could contain all of the music taught, whereas
any recording would be incomplete (one years HN recordings took up 4
cassettes, and that was still substantially edited down. In 1998, I used 14
DAT tapes!)

At some future point, this material might be able to be more widely
disseminated rather than to just HN attendees-if we can work out the
copyright issues. I'm certainly willing to spearhead such a project.

Now, some people are aural learners-and they may need recordings. But it has
been my experience that this can be difficult to realize on a coordinated
and complete scale. Perhaps just sticking with individual recordings by
attendees, with due respect-might be a solution? Or perhaps people could
group together and agree to share recordings made by one person-preferably
with a DAT or MiniDisc or similarly long duration recording media? Maybe
OSRUI could buy a few DAT recorders or miniDisc recorders and rent them out?

Or maybe we can try an "official HN recording" one more time and see how it
turns out?

I'm just thinking aloud-but maybe we should all do that now?

Looking forward to meeting new friends and seeing lots of old friends in
Oconomowoc in just a few weeks.

Adrian
List Owner - Hanashir
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."
                          -George Carlin
Adrian A. Durlester  -  durleste (at) home(dot)com
http://members.home.net/durleste/
soon2b MTS, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
http://divinity.lib.vanderbilt.edu/vds/vds-home.htm
Music Director, Congregation Micah, Nashville, TN http://www.micahnash.org/
Home phone (615) 646-9788 Nextel cel-phone (615) 207-2661
You can page me from http://www.nextel.com
List-Owner for hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org; Co-Owner for L-Torah (at) 
shamash(dot)org
http://uahc.org/hanashir
Editor, Bim Bam (for Torah Aura Productions) http://www.torahaura.com/
Alternate Email: aad (at) iname(dot)com  adriand (at) aol(dot)com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Atheism is a non-prophet organization."
                          -George Carlin
Adrian A. Durlester  -  durleste (at) home(dot)com
http://members.home.net/durleste/
soon2b MTS, Vanderbilt University Divinity School
http://divinity.lib.vanderbilt.edu/vds/vds-home.htm
Music Director, Congregation Micah, Nashville, TN http://www.micahnash.org/
Home phone (615) 646-9788 Nextel cel-phone (615) 207-2661
You can page me from http://www.nextel.com
List-Owner for hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org; Co-Owner for L-Torah (at) 
shamash(dot)org
http://uahc.org/hanashir
Editor, Bim Bam (for Torah Aura Productions) http://www.torahaura.com/
Alternate Email: aad (at) iname(dot)com  adriand (at) aol(dot)com

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